


Paranormal Activity

by sweezey



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Female Hinata Hajime, Female Komaeda Nagito, Genderbending, How Do I Tag, Komahina - Freeform, Rule 63, Underage Drinking, hinata doesn't know how to handle it, hinata gets wasted, komaeda is really fucking weird, they're lesbians harold, worm banter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29028954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweezey/pseuds/sweezey
Summary: “As I mentioned earlier, I really am quite fond of worms! They’re such easy pets - and more importantly, my luck cycle has little impact on their naturally short lifespans. I hope my little analogy doesn’t carry over in that department, haha! I would want you to live a long, healthy life - that is, of course, unless the plane crashes and we both die on the trip back from our honeymoon. That would be a wonderful case of tragic irony, wouldn’t it? The world works in such mysterious ways. Anyways, I’m in the habit of spending time with my worms to get to know them a little better. What do you say about meeting at the local cafe downtown tomorrow at three in the afternoon?”------Hinata is peer pressured into speed-running a haunted house and later just happens to encounter a terrible, confusing, infuriatingly pretty ghost in the woods.
Relationships: Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito
Comments: 16
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KB20XX](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KB20XX/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> art by KB20XX! love u darling

Rays of the setting sun peeked through fluffy cards, warming the pavement below Hinata’s feet. The grass sparkled with droplets of dew, and the afternoon breeze felt cool and refreshing against her cheek. By all means, it should have been a perfect afternoon.

Except, of course, for the fact that Hinata was standing stiff-shouldered before the foreboding entrance of the “Graveyard Manor”. She clenched and unclenched her fists, shifted from foot to foot, wiped her open palms on the front of her skirt- then winced at the damp marks they left behind. A cautious hand grazed Hinata’s shoulder, causing her to flinch about a thousand miles into the air.

“Hey...we don’t have to go in if you don’t want to, you know? These kinds of things are just meant to be fun. Don’t pressure yourself, okay?” Chiaki reassured, lulling her nerves with a warm smile.

“Ahaha, oh my god! Look at that basic bitch, she’s trembling. Imagine getting that worked up over just the thought of a few lame paid actors in shitty ghost costumes!” Hiyoko’s voice trilled, clawing into the direct center of Hinata’s frontal lobe.

Her fingers tensed around the denim fabric of her skirt. “I’m not -”

Hinata’s bluster was choked short by a clap to the back that was far too enthusiastic for its own good.

“Aww, hey - it’s okay to be scared, that’s the whole point of haunted houses! You’ll have fun and loosen up after a few spooks, satisfaction guaranteed.” Kazuichi pondered for a moment before adding, “And if you somehow end up not having a good time after all, I’ll take you out for drinks after - It’s a win-win!” She gave Hinata a thumbs up and one of her signature sharktoothed grins.

“Fine, I’ll go-”

“Besides,” Ibuki chimed in, “Don’tcha wanna live it up a little? Let loose? Live life on the edge? Don’t be such a stick, Hajamjams! Life is sooo unpredictable! You never know when you’ll lose all of your memories and emotions, so you might as well make the most of everything that comes your way! Yahoo!”

“Guys!” Hinata erupted, exasperation fraying her nerves, “I’m going in! I already said I’m going in!” Immediately, her friends erupted into cheers. Hinata tried - rather unsuccessfully - to stifle a grin at the praise.

“In fact,” Hinata’s mouth blurted, racing miles ahead of her brain, “I’ll do you guys one better! I’ll go first, and get through the whole haunted house alone!” This ignited a fresh wave of hoots and whistles, Kazuichi pumping a fist so enthusiastically that she clipped Akane in the jaw. Akane accepted this as a challenge to a fistfight, and happily obliged by socking Kazuichi soundly in the stomach.

Hinata basked in the center of attention modestly, a grin plastered on her face - until her brain began to catch up with the implications of what she had just promised.

Sweat began to condense on her brow. She shot Chiaki a meaningful look, communicating via telepathic signal that Chiaki needed to bail Hinata out of her own idiot bravado immediately. The signal was effectively blocked by the game of Tetris the boy was now completely engrossed in.

Hinata lingered at the door of the house for as long as she could while keeping her pride intact. Trembling fingers hovered to twist at the knob before pulling back to wave at her friends again, and olive eyes scanned the weathered door frame for the umpteenth time before swiveling to burn holes into Chiaki’s skull. The faces watching her began to flip from expectant to doubtful.

“Aww, all that big talk for nothing! How pathetic,” Hiyoko called, with such scathing sincerity that Hinata felt her organs shrivel a little.

Hinata drew in a deeply offended sputter of air - as if she were preparing to dive deep underwater - and barreled into the haunted house.

Mechanically produced fog immediately clouded her senses. She coughed, squinting to make sense of her surroundings. A long, narrow, hallway loomed ahead of her, shadowed doorways interspersed along its length. The door creaked shut behind her, a resolute thump sealing her fate. Eerie, disjointed music blared from tinny speakers hidden in the walls.

_Jesus. Why the hell did you say you were going alone, again? This is how idiot kids die in horror movies. They isolate themselves from the herd acting all cocky, strut into a haunted house, and then a real axe murderer hiding out there has a time of turning stupid teenagers into taxidermied decorations._

_...This music is driving me crazy._

“Gee,” Hinata spoke out loud, “It would be really tragic if, oh, I don’t know, an axe murderer popped out of one of those doorways. Truly horrific.”

There was a pause, then an almost imperceptible murmur and shuffle of footsteps. Hinata skittered past the first door with her back to the wall, peering at the old worn boots that peeked just beneath the door with suspicion.

As she walked past the second doorway, frantic metal clanging noises began to emanate from within the dark in rapid succession. Low grunts, groans, and keening noises joined the cacophony.

“Wouldn’t it really suck,” Hinata mused out loud, a ball of nervous energy, “If those noises turned out to be from a convict rattling the bars to their cell? Sure hope they don’t reach through the bars and try to kill me.”

The noises stopped abruptly, clearly taken aback.

_Wait a minute. If I just guess what’s going to happen before it happens, then nothing will happen because of how anticlimactic it’d be? God, I bet horror movie protagonists wish they had known how simple it is to not get killed._

Mentally patting herself on the back for figuring out the trick, Hinata proceeded to sprint towards the nearest exit sign. Two encounters left unscathed was the extent of which Hinata was willing to push her luck tonight.

…

“That haunted house wasn’t fun at all,” Hinata slurred, pointing an accusatory decorative toothpick at Kazuichi.

Kazuichi sighed. “C’mon...that’s why I’m buying you drinks, aren’t I? Besides, you can’t say it sucked if you chickened out before the good bits. You’re judging a book by the first two pages.”

Hinata pondered this for a moment. Her frown steepened. “I bet you don’t even read books.”

“What the- of course I do! You think I’m illiterate or something just because I don’t dress like a nerd anymore? I read books every day! Tons of ‘em!”

“Oh yeah?” Hinata snickered. “Name one.”

“Easy. The Bible.” Now it was Kazuichi’s turn to look smug.

Hinata made a noise halfway between a grunt and a cough. “I meant name...ten.”

“Already done, sucker - the Bible’s basically a buy one get ten!” Kazuichi chortled, elbowing Hinata in the side. Hinata joined her, chuckling uneasily as she silently tried to recall what genre the Bible was.

Her laughter trailed off when she realized that her friend had been completely silent and still for some time. Forehead knotted in concern, she reached out to tap Kazuichi on the shoulder and promptly got her hand swatted away. The other girl’s eyes could reasonably be mistaken for saucers implemented in her skull.

“Shhh…okay, so you know I’m completely straight - obviously, right?”

“Ummm…” Hinata frowned.

“I am. Anyways, isn’t that blonde girl over there kinda smokin’ hot? I think she’s looking at me. Is she looking at me, or the girl behind me? You think I could get her number, or maybe get her to let me shine her shoes, or make her breakfast in bed, or-”

Hinata stared at Kazuichi, nonplussed, before her eyes promptly shifted out of focus.

When her vision regained clarity, Hinata saw that her friend had vanished.

Hinata rose to her feet and stumbled off the bar stool, gripping the marble counter for balance.

“Kaz?” Oh, that cool countertop feels nice. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to rest my head there for just a bit…

Hinata shook her head groggily. No matter how drunk she was, she owed it to herself to not be the drunk idiot knocked out cold at a public bar. Just need a little fresh air to clear my head. I can do that.

Wobbling like a deer on stilts, Hinata staggered on two left feet towards an exit that suddenly seemed far too far away. When she finally reached the doorway, she drooped triumphantly from the frame, holding on for dear life. The sun had long since dipped below the horizon, leaving a pitch-dark, moonless night sky in its wake. Hinata dropped to a crawl, hardly able to see further than two feet away.

“Boy,” she slurred. “I sure hope there’s no crazy vengeful ghosts around here to sneak up on me while I’m boozed out of my mind. That’d make the plot for a shitty B-movie.”

“Hello.” A cheerful, mild-mannered voice greeted her from behind.

Hinata yelped and scrambled backwards ass-first before realizing that the voice had come from behind her, then scrambled forwards and fell on her face into the grass. She gave a feeble attempt to lift her head and turn to see who the speaker was, but it was taking all of her focus just to remember which direction was up. After a moment of reflection, she decided that an effective solution to this dilemma would be to drop to the ground and roll onto her back, like a goddamned ninja turtle.

Above her loomed a tall, lanky, spirit with wisps for hair and eyes of gravel. It had a face pale as the moon, with dark smokey rings on its eyelids. Hinata blinked. Upon further inspection, it seemed that this face was far too close to Hinata’s for comfort. She screamed and shielded herself, ready to be haunted or maimed or whatever the hell ghosts did to drunk idiots who went out into the middle of the pitch-dark night alone.

“I don’t have any money on me! My parents are already broke sending me to private school, so they wouldn’t be able to afford a ransom if you kidnapped me - plus I would honestly make a really bad hostage! A-And if you really want my soul, that’s pretty average, too! And I’m boring, I’d be no fun to scare! Just leave me alone! Go back to the haunted house or s-s-something!” Hinata blubbered, kicking wildly at where she approximated the ghost was standing.

Nagito Komaeda watched with rapt attention as the girl beneath her writhed and fired sluggish kicks at a tree trunk.

“That was a very interesting story, Hinata-san! And it’s true that I do have quite the ghastly face - astute observation, by the way, I’m also lowly and worthless - so I’ll be sure to note your recommendation of residence.”

Hinata sat up with a jolt, wincing as her brain seemed to come loose in her skull at the motion. She suddenly felt very, very, cold.

“However,” Komaeda rattled on, “I regret to inform you that I have not, in fact, been sent to retrieve your soul. You see, I couldn’t help but notice you exiting the bar on your hands and knees, and I wondered if this was because you were searching for earthworms or simply incredibly inebriated. It seems the latter is the case - a shame, as I’m rather fond of worms.”

Hinata silently debated over whether or not becoming violently ill would allow her to escape this interaction. Did ghosts ever get grossed out enough to leave?

“Either way, I wanted to make sure you were alright. The woods around here can be rather dangerous, you know. You might even encounter a creature spookier than me, haha! An actual ghost, that is.” Komaeda clasped her hands together, rather breathless by the end of her monologue.

Hinata had understood approximately 30% of what had just been said, but that 30% had been sufficient to gather that she had, yet again, made a disastrous mistake.

“So just to be clear,” she iterated, tongue feeling heavy and foreign in her mouth, “you aren’t a ghost.”

“Not yet, no!” Komaeda agreed cheerfully. “Would you like me to be one? I could certainly try wrapping myself in your sheets and poking holes in them!”

“Hold on, how do you even know my name?” Hinata mumbled, brain lagging sorely behind in the flow of conversation. Her eyes widened, then narrowed to slits as she began to process the implications of the new terrible thing the not-ghost had just said. Komaeda patiently folded her hands.

“I’m not letting you within ten fucking feet of my bed,” came Hinata’s belated rebuttal.

Something unexpected twanged in her chest when she saw the not-ghost’s face fall.

“...because,” she continued, nervously, “I just got new sheets. They’re navy blue, and they’re floral patterned, and they smell like fresh linen and they match my underwear, and if you cut holes in them my parents are gonna be pissed. And I’m gonna be pissed. And you wouldn’t look like a ghost at all, because ghosts need white sheets.”

Hinata paused. Groaned. Immediately turned to the nearest tree and kicked it at full force.

“What an athletic display! You truly seem to have it in for those trees tonight.” Komaeda remarked, parlance infused with a carefully crafted cheer.

“And you,” Hinata gritted through her teeth, deliberately avoiding eye contact by staring down the vertical zippers on the other girl’s boots, “never answered my question.”

Komaeda offered a politely blank stare.

“How do you know my name, asshole!” Hinata exploded.

“Ah! About that.” Komaeda grinned in delight and ushered the tragically inebriated girl to take a seat on the grass. Hinata’s limbs obeyed automatically, buckling beneath her to sprawl across the ground unceremoniously. The not-ghost had the good sense to refrain from commenting on this.

“It’s about time we get formally introduced, isn’t it? I’m Nagito Komaeda, the ultimate lucky student. I recognized you, Hinata-san, from the reserve course at Hope’s Peak Academy - although it makes sense that you never noticed me, since I’m clearly the most undeserving of ultimates to ever hold such a title. But what a sad and insignificant existence you must lead with no ultimate at all - a human without any talent is more akin to a worm, don’t you think? Honestly, I don’t know how you’ve managed to befriend so many ultimates.”

Hinata, for the second time that night, seriously considered the repercussions of vomiting all over the anemic-looking girl’s shoes. Perhaps it would actually be an improvement. She began to rise to her feet, leaning against the tree she had previously mistaken for Komaeda’s legs as balance.

“Listen,” she snarled, “I don’t know who you think you-”

“But,” Komaeda continued, placing a bony hand on Hinata’s head and gently pushing her back down to a kneeling position, “As I mentioned earlier, I really am quite fond of worms! They’re such easy pets - and more importantly, my luck cycle has little impact on their naturally short lifespans. I hope my little analogy doesn’t carry over in that department, haha! I would want you to live a long, healthy life - that is, of course, unless the plane crashes and we both die on the trip back from our honeymoon. That would be a wonderful case of tragic irony, wouldn’t it? The world works in such mysterious ways. Anyways, I’m in the habit of spending time with my worms to get to know them a little better. What do you say about meeting at the local cafe downtown tomorrow at three in the afternoon?”

Hinata wondered if it was possible that she was hallucinating this entire conversation. _That bartender looked kind of shady, right? I wonder if he slipped roofies into my drink or something._

_….Actually, drugs are probably really expensive...who would waste a good roofie on someone like me? Maybe the drink was originally for somebody else._

She glanced up, dimly aware that she had just been asked a question. After a moment of contemplation, she decided that the safest course of action would be to nod vigorously until the figment of her imagination left her alone.

“Great!” A genuine smile crinkled the corners of Komaeda’s eyes, gravel softening to fine sand. “It’s a date then. Come now, I’ll escort you back home.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They meet again!

Komaeda wondered, idly, if her date for the evening was planning on showing up as she peered intently at a passionate skirmish between a pair of possums through the window. The subject of their disagreement appeared to be a chunk of bloated roadkill. 

Ginger footsteps sounded from behind, indicating that someone - probably a waitress - was approaching. Komaeda tensed as the waitress cleared her throat. 

“Would...you like to order anything, ma’am? You’ve been sitting here for quite a while now; if you’d like to see our menu, you certainly-”

“Ah, you. Yes, You’re just the kind of person I wanted to see!’ Komaeda twisted in her seat, eyes blazing with manic fervor. The waitress stumbled back, clearly caught off guard.

“M-me?” She squeaked, looking around wildly to see if there was anyone else the anemic possibly could have been referring to.

“There’s no time to dawdle, my dear...” Komaeda gestured, squinting at the waitress’s name tag. “...Hana. Do you see those creatures outside?”

The bewildered girl looked at her, then out the window, then back at her. “Y-Yes?”

“Tell me, Hana, how does their struggle make you feel?” Komaeda leaned forward, fingertips pressed together tightly as she grinned from ear to ear in anticipation.

“I could...ask the manager to call someone who can get rid of the roadkill,” The waitress offered uncertainly, clearly regretting the decision to approach her table. 

Komaeda’s lip curled. “How ordinary...I suppose it’s what I should have expected from such an ordinary person.” Her face brightened as it turned to the fight once more. 

“I suppose I’ll just have to take the liberty of telling you, then.”

“You see, the scene that we’re spectating together isn’t just a reckless display of animalistic tendencies - it’s a representative of the push and pull of society itself! Those who are weaker than others will fight and claw, but only the best possums, the strongest possums, the possums with the sharpest teeth and claws and minds - these are the ones who have been selected to be the top of the top will prevail! The weaker ones, you and I, will have to scavenge and hunt ourselves ragged just to savor the meagerest scraps of roadkill!...now tell me, Hana, what do you think of that?”

“Hey. Komaeda, was it?” Came a familiar deadpan voice. “Would you quit harassing the waitress? She looks scared out of her mind.”

“Ah, Hinata-san! You did come after all!” Komaeda exclaimed, clasping her hands together and doing her best approximation of a friendly grin.

The waitress scurried away, visibly horrified.

“Aww...was my smile really such a scary sight? I’ve even been practicing in the mirror! But enough about me - what about you, Hinata-san? You seemed quite a bit out of sorts last night. It surprises me that you even managed to remember our date.”

Hinata rubbed her temples in a way that only exasperated mothers and people with killer hangovers could. 

“It helps,” she snapped, “that you somehow took all the aspirin from my house while I was sleeping - I don’t even remember telling you my address, by the way - and left me a fucking sticky note on my nightstand saying ‘Do you have a headache? Meet me at Towa Coffee tomorrow afternoon at 3 PM, haha!’”

Komaeda chuckled, unzipping her satchel. “Ah, that! That’s-” 

“Shut it!” Hinata cried. “You’ve crossed the line way too many times now! What kind of fucking psychopath are you? Who writes out a laugh in a note? Why the hell did you steal my aspirin? And most importantly - how do you know where I live?”

“Ah, there it is…! The vehement passion of fury, the blazing eyes of hope and justice…I always knew there was potential in you after all. I’m truly glad I was able to bring out this side of you, Hinata-san.” Komaeda simpered, eyes alight with glee. 

Hinata gritted her teeth, reminding herself that there were far too many gawking witnesses in the cafe for her to safely clock the other girl in the teeth. “Talk normal for once. And answer my questions, or I’m calling the police right now.” She drew herself up and waved her phone at Komaeda to show that she meant business.

Komaeda glanced down at her nails, suddenly impassive. “There’s no need to resort to such drastic measures, Hinata-san. Although I am enamored with - with the hope that sleeps inside of you, I can assure you that I never went out of my way to find out where you lived. That’s an act better befitting an ultimate private investigator, no? I’m the ultimate lucky student, Hinata, since it seems you needed the refresher. I closed my eyes and pointed at a random spot on the town map, then drove there.”

“Like hell you did,” Hinata sputtered. “That’s the least believable-”

“As for the medicine,” Komaeda continued pointedly, “not to worry, your beloved aspirin is still at your house - I only swapped and discarded the labels a little. It’s more of an adventure taking pills when you don’t know what they are or what they’re for, don’t you think?”

Conversational murmurs and the clinking of glasses from other tables at the cafe filled the pause as Hinata processed this.

She narrowed her eyes. “...Alright, let’s pretend like that’s not the most suspicious thing I’ve ever heard in my life. If you didn’t steal my aspirin, then why did you pretend like you did?”

The other girl blinked. “I have terrible news - I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Hinata appeared as if her head was going to explode. “Am I going to have to show you your own cryptic note?” She hissed, waving the heart-plastered stationary under Komaeda’s nose. “Look, it specifically says, ‘Do you have a headache? Meet me at Towa Coffee tomorrow afternoon at 3 PM, haha!’ I’m not the sharpest person in the world, but that note is definitely implying that you’re holding my painkillers hostage. Plus, you reached into your satchel the second I mentioned it! Why would you do that if you weren’t going to take out the pills?!”

Sly recognition lit up Komaeda’s eyes. “Ah, that! I can safely assure you that there is no correlation between those two clauses. I was simply: one, asking if you had a headache, and two, reminding you of our date today. As for the contents of my satchel, here’s what I was going to give you before I was so raucously interrupted.” Nimble fingers reached into the bag and rummaged around for a few seconds before emerging with a neatly packaged box of kusamochi. 

“Kusamochi…?” Hinata looked equal parts bewildered and flattered, anger rapidly deflating. “How did you...wait, why would you give me this?”

Komaeda slid the box across the table and motioned for Hinata to take a seat. “I feel like our date went off to a bit of a rough start, wouldn’t you agree?” 

Hinata, against her better judgement, took a seat. “I mean...if you’re calling it a date, then yeah, definitely not the smoothest one I’ve ever been on.” She frowned, patting down the box to make sure it wasn’t secretly a bomb before pocketing it. “Actually, I guess it’s the only one I’ve ever been on. It’s definitely not what I was expecting. You’re the weirdest fucking person I’ve ever met, you know that?”

“What a fantastic distinction!” Komaeda beamed, stopping immediately when she recalled that her smiling visage had caused a waitress to flee in horror only minutes earlier. She settled for vigorously patting Hinata’s hand instead.

 _Could it be possible,_ Hinata wondered as her hand got rapidly fluttered by the other girl’s clammy palm, _that I’ve really just been hallucinating Komaeda this entire time? What if this is a weird, tripped-up dream and I just never woke up?_

For the first time since they had met, Hinata took it upon herself to properly study the potential mirage’s appearance. It was unusual, to say the least - a shock of tangled white hair knotted down the pale girl's back, matching the color of her unusually long eyelashes. Her nose and cheekbones were sharp, and her eyes perpetually sunken and half-lidded, making her look as if she hadn’t had a proper night of sleep in months. No wonder I thought she was a ghost, Hinata quipped to herself.

And yet...under the orange glow of the setting sun, her angular features seemed to soften. Her piercings glinted in a way that caught Hinata’s eye, and those long, half-lidded eyelashes almost made her seem...delicate. A stray eyelash drifted off mid-blink and came to rest on Komaeda’s cheek. 

Out of absentminded reflex, Hinata reached up to brush the eyelash from the other girl’s face. Her thumb lingered as it swiped a lazy arc across pale cheekbone. She realized with a start that Komaeda had - miraculously - gone silent.

“Ah! Sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking. I should’ve asked before touching you.” Hinata apologized, jerking her hand back as if it had touched hot coals. She paused. “Wait a minute, you came into my house and switched the labels on my pills. Never fucking mind. You don’t deserve personal boundaries.”

Komaeda looked positively elated. 

“Ah, to get a touch as gentle as this from my dear Hinata-san! I must be the luckiest person on Earth. I wonder what the universe will take from me in return - am I to get hit by a truck when I walk outside? Or better yet, a meteor? Or maybe I’ll simply drop dead on the spot! Ahaha. Not to worry, Hinata-san - I’ll die smiling, with the fond memory of your caress on my face!”

Hinata nodded, as if she had actually understood all of whatever fresh bullshit had emerged from Komaeda’s mouth this time. “Yeah, well. Um.” She began, the epitome of eloquence. “That wasn’t meant to be a...caress. You had an eyelash. On your face, I mean. It fell off. I was getting rid of it.”

Komaeda didn’t skip a beat. “Well then, it appears I have my missing cilium to thank for this sudden brush of intimacy!” She gushed. “Tell me, Hinata-san - theoretically, if all of my fingernails were to fall off my hand right now, would you hold it?” She unfurled her hands and stared at them intently, as if evaluating the most efficient method of fingernail removal.

“Wh-” Hinata sputtered, grabbing Komaeda’s wrists. “You don’t need to do something so weird! I can just...here.” She gingerly intertwined Komaeda’s long fingers with her own. One glimpse of the other girl’s smug smile told Hinata that she was playing right into Komaeda’s hands - although strangely enough, Hinata didn’t mind it. Their palms slotted together like magnets of opposite polarities, fingers crossing over each other in a fascinating pattern of papery and tan, bony and stout.

“...To be honest, I wasn’t even sure you were entirely real until now.” Hinata mumbled.

“That’s a fair assessment!” Komaeda agreed, far too cheerfully. “Many people mistake me for something I’m not. I’ve been dubbed a variety of colorful nicknames before, such as ‘ghoul girl’, honky-ass sleep paralysis demon’, and ‘bruh’, so you’re certainly free to take your pick. Of course, if you prefer your ghost idea, I’d be happy to play along with that too. My offer still stands on that, by the way - although I’d never dream of cutting holes in your fresh new sheets, we could certainly find other ways to have fun in them!”

Hinata ruminated on this for a moment. _Could it be possible that...Komaeda is hitting on me? No, don’t get full of yourself - she called you a worm when you first met, remember? Nobody’s attracted to worms, not even other worms. Think, Hinata, think. She must mean something else by “fun in the sheets”. Is that slang for wanting to hang out, like telling each other scary stories under a blanket? Does Komaeda...want to be my friend?_

She grinned. “Sure, Komaeda! Let’s have fun in the sheets sometime!” She threw in a wink, just to show the other girl that she had decoded the secret slang. 

Komaeda, for the second time that day, was rendered speechless. She untangled their fingers, fumbled to take out a notepad and pen from her satchel, and scrawled her phone number into the paper so hard that it tore. The note was then ripped out of the pad and slid across the table. Komaeda rose to her feet, gave a dazed wave to a bewildered Hinata, and turned to go.

“Hey, wait - what?! Where are you going?” Hinata called at Komaeda’s receding back.

“This,” Komaeda said, flinching in pain as she stumbled into the corner of a table hip-first, “is a dangerously potent concentration of luck in a dangerously short period of time. I know better than to underestimate my own luck cycle, and I fear for the fate of everyone in this cafe if I’m to stay here. Goodbye! Call me in three days if I’m still alive! Godspeed!”

The bell above the door jingled to announce Komaeda’s hasty exit. Hinata sat dumbstruck in her chair, hand still unfurled, wondering what the hell had just happened. She glanced down at the number the other girl had so hastily provided and shrugged, moving to type it into her phone. 

_Huh. Guess I better get used to this kind of weird shit now that Komaeda and I are friends._

The thought, oddly enough, put a smile on Hinata’s face.


End file.
